Skip to main content

short stories - Name/Author of story of heart surgeon who corrects alligator hearts and makes dragons


There's an old ( Ancient?) story I recall from a collection, but not well enough to locate on Google ( It keeps giving me biographies of cardiac transplant surgeons ). A famous British IIRC surgeon pioneers corrective surgery for heart defects. the narrator of the tale, a close friend of the surgeon, points out to him that an alligators hearts could be thought of as "deformed" in ways when compared to other animals even among reptiles. The surgeon speculates if this could be a true mutation deformity and sets out to "correct" it surgically in a group of test subjects. The alligators survive, and like neotonous animals exposed to hormones, grow further, sprout wings, and literally become dragons. Anyone recognize the story?



Answer



This is The Day of the Dragon, by Guy Endore. (He's credited as "Guy Endor" in the linked reproduction but appears as "Endore" on Wikipedia and IMDb.) A Professor Crabshaw endeavors to cure alligators' congenital heart conditions:



"'Well,' Crabshaw went on before I could interrupt, 'it occurred to me one day to see what would happen if that bad heart condition of the alligator were cleared up or at least improved by stretching that incomplete septum to form a dividing wall between the venous and the arterial blood streams."



Clever readers might predict the outcome: The "cured" gators grow into dragons!




"There were my beasts, growing larger every day, greater now then elephants in the bulk of their torso and the parasol-like growth on their backs expanding and expanding, and shaping itself out into two vast ovals, one on each side. Then, on day, it came to me, suddenly, what these were: wings! Yes, sir, wings!"



Crabshaw's well-intentioned endeavor has some unfortunate effects:



"Too late then to fight the vermin that had obtained such a foot hold in our world. Alas - no longer our world, but the world of the dragons who have become supreme!"



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - How could Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra?

I want to be very careful about how I ask this question – I am not asking How did Voldemort die? [CLOSED] Below the text is the relevant passages from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if anyone wants to review them (I'm sorry for the amount of text). How did Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra and kill Voldemort? I feel the reason Harry's Expelliarmus overpowered Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse has to do with who was master of the Elder Wand and how the Elder Wand works. I've always had trouble understanding fully how the Elder Wand works, though. How much did the fact that Voldemort never truly won or mastered the Elder Wand factor into how Expelliarmus reacted to Avada Kedavra and caused Avada Kedavra to rebound and kill Voldemort? An answer based in book canon would be especially welcome, but any canon source really is fine. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: ‘ Avada Kedavra !’ ‘ Expelliarmus !...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is there good canon evidence for the "Nightmare Matrix"?

On the Matrix wiki, there's an article about the Nightmare Matrix which says: The Nightmare Matrix was the second prototype Matrix, designed by The Architect after the massive failure of the Paradise Matrix in the hope that human minds would more readily accept an imperfect world with suffering. Unlike the first version, this Matrix instituted a basic cause-and-effect programming and forcibly made those connected to it accept the program. Vamp Prime, a possible remnant of the Nightmare Matrix. It also featured programs that resembled mythical evil creatures in various human mythologies such as vampires, werewolves, zombies, aliens, etc. It also failed, but many of the programs who were designed for it survived deletion in exile. The Merovingian and his wife, Persephone may have had their roots in this version of the Matrix. Upon its failure, the Merovingian started a smuggling ring of programs and information to provide a haven for exiles that would last for 6 cycles in the final ...
Post a Comment
Read more

story identification - Anime with a boy hiring a creature from a stone, meets a man named Dante and starts a journey to collect crystals

I am from India, this anime or animated series (I can't remember this was made by the Japan or other countries) was aired between 2009 and 2012 probably in Jetix/Disney XD (but I'm not sure). This anime starts with a boy (the main character, I forgot his name) who find a stone (or crystal like thing) in his dad's property, his dad was missing that time. Some day he accidentally hire a creature/monster from that stone. Other day some creature attack him and he was saved by his creature and the story begins. In his journey to solve the mystery he meets a middle aged man 'Dante' (probably that was the name; this is the only character name I can remember). He had also some stone. After that they meet with one girl and a women (one of the girls is same age with the main boy character and probably will become his partner as the story goes on). Another women probably Dante's partner. Four of them started their journey to collect all the stone/crystal. They are collecti...
Post a Comment
Read more